


Two Tired Old Men

by phantomthief_fee



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Grumpy Old Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/pseuds/phantomthief_fee
Summary: Merle and John are very strange to one another. They're not quite sure what to make of each other. But they know one thing...They like each other's company.





	Two Tired Old Men

There was something so shockingly ordinary about the being known as the Hunger. He looked like a kindly uncle, with an easy smile and laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. He was maybe between 50 and 60, neither thin nor fat. He dressed as he had in life, in a sharp three piece suit, a slate gray tie, and black dress shoes. John did not consider himself to be a vain man, but he had appearances to keep up after all. Even if Merle showed up in his underwear, John was determined to keep up appearances. Some vestige of the man he had once been clung to that appearance, almost as a way of grounding himself.

If Merle noticed this, he never said anything about it. He was usually too focused on chess or answering whatever questions John had come up with. Talking with John was...calming, despite the impending threat of death. He was just so ordinary. Someone you would pass on the street, barely giving a second thought. If Merle blocked out everything, he could actually enjoy himself. But John’s eyes....Those eyes were horrifying. They weren’t eyes so much as black pits. The second you saw his eyes, you knew he wasn’t normal. Merle didn’t usually have a problem with this. Very little scared the old dwarf anymore. Freaky eyes did little to ruin his mood. No, that wasn’t what scared Merle Highchurch.

Honestly, John scared Merle. It wasn’t because of the way John looked, or the fact that the other man happened to be a world devouring entity. It was the fact that he could so easily have become someone like John. His life consisted of running away and dying over and over and over. He’d lost everything and everyone he’d ever cared about, save for the few people who had survived on the Starblaster, but even then he saw them die more than he was comfortable with. It would be painfully easy to just slip into nihilism, to stop caring. To ... _give up_.

Merle could see himself in those black eyes, and that scared him more than any monster ever could. Now, it was in Merle’s nature to try and save everyone he could, so he naturally wanted to help the world devouring entity who kept trying to kill him and his friends. He hadn’t shared these feelings with the rest of the crew, knowing full well that they’d shoot down his hopes for redeeming John. Still, he held out hope that one day he’d be able to look John in the eye, shake his hand, and have John admit that Merle had been right. He didn’t know if that day would ever come, but he let himself remain optimistic about it.

Even after he rejected John, even after he called him a bastard and forgot everything he knew, Merle still hoped. In the end, against this terrible monster, all he had was hope. Now he was sitting across from John again, watching as the other man’s skin cracked and the dark ooze of the Hunger trickled out. He remembered now. He was ready. It pained him to see John in such a state. John was always so meticulous about his appearance. Seeing him anything less than perfect meant something was very seriously wrong. Merle sighed to himself as he pulled up a chair to the table. Time for another chess game and another talk. He wondered what it would be about this time.

They fell into their usual rhythm, but it was different. John was not alright, and that was terrifying. The Hunger had turned against its master. Merle wondered briefly if John had ever been the master of the Hunger. The guy was persuasive, sure, but he was sure the second the entity known as the Hunger had been created, John had no longer been in charge. It wanted and wanted and wanted. It could not be controlled. Merle felt panicked as he watched John disappear into the floor. He had to save him. He had to keep his friend safe. Friend....Was John even his friend? He wanted to believe so. He'd find some way to save him. Somehow. 

* * *

John didn’t like to admit he was wrong. He supposed it was a pride thing. He didn’t consider himself to be a prideful person, not anymore at least, but in life he was rather sure he had been. When it came to Merle, though, he didn’t mind so much. John wasn’t sure what it was about Merle that made him different. Merle was...He was the kind of person John had generally stayed away from in his human life. John had never been a particularly religious person, nor had his family. Someone like Merle, who believed so strongly in the gods, that was not the sort of person John had socialized with. That kind of religious devotion had never sat well with him. With Merle, it was different though. John had met so many people who just wanted to shove their religion down his throat, to fix him somehow. Merle had never tried to force anything on John. Even when he disagreed with John, Merle didn’t try to force him to believe anything. Maybe that was why John finally began to change his mind. He was used to people being forceful, assertive. Meanwhile, Merle snuck in his beliefs with simple congeniality. 

In his time in the Hunger, John had forgotten what it was like to be human. For so long he had been one of many, another voice in the endless cacophony that was the Hunger. Then he’d been pulled into the parlay room and everything had changed. John began to look forward to each time he saw Merle, eagerly anticipating their talks. He practiced chess strategies, thought up new conversation topics. The other entities that made up the Hunger, long since having lost their own humanity, didn’t understand his excitement. They sought only to consume, to take and take and take until there was nothing left to be taken. And slowly, slowly, John began to forget why he’d been so angry in the first place. For the first time in his life, he had a friend, a real one. He’d had friends before, sure, but not like this. John had never had a friend that he’d genuinely liked. John didn’t like people. He could fake it, sure, but he’d never really had feelings of genuine affection towards, well, anyone really. As with so many other things though, Merle was different. The dwarf was the kind of person you just had to like. He didn’t give you much of a choice in the matter. 

Merle had brought him back from a brink he hadn’t even known he’d been on. He’d...He’d saved him. It had been a bit of a shock for John to realize that, stowed away in the bowels of the Hunger. 20 years he’d stayed there, growing more and more alone with every passing second. The people who had once followed him into oblivion turned on him. He wasn’t giving them what they wanted. At first, he’d tried to talk to them, tried to get them to understand that he was trying. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when they didn’t listen to him. He wasn’t their leader anymore. He wasn’t one of them, either. Not anymore. He’d become too human, too attached. He’d become....weak. And now he was going to die because of it. John harbored no fantasies that Merle might be able to save him, but he did hope. For the first time in his life he had hope. He remained aware as he was dragged back into the depths. They pulled and pushed, beginning to devour everything he had. He felt his memories beginning to slip away. Would he ever see Merle again? Would they ever be able to play another chess game? He certainly hoped so. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something for these tired old men. Hope you enjoy it.


End file.
